It has been recognized that drill presses which can securely hold a workpiece and move a drill bit in a precise and accurate axial fashion are extremely useful when drilling precisely located holes and ensuring that the holes form straight and nearly perfect cylinders. It should be appreciated that such precise drilling may be required in remote locations, or that it may be required to form such holes in particularly large workpieces which are not capable of being transported to a machine shop that typically includes an appropriate conventional shop-sized drill press. Additionally, typical shop-sized drill presses would be particularly burdensome to transport to a work site, particularly when only a few such operations might be needed. It has therefore been recognized that a portable handheld drill press would be desirable. Such a press can fit into a standard sized toolbox, accept a wide variety of standard size bits, and still allow for precise movements of the handheld drill with respect to the workpiece.
The prior art has attempted to solve this need, but still has several shortcomings. For example, in the prior art, drills are movable on the spine (also referred to as a rackbar), which can create unwanted twisting of other rotational movement of the drill. Further, drills in the prior art are mounted closely to the spine, which limits their ability to be used in a variety of circumstances.
As such, there is a need for a portable handheld drill press that restricts rotational movement of the drill and that is also capable of drilling at a distance from the spine while maintaining a clamping ability.